EVGA GeForce 8600 GT Review - Mainstream GPU Power!

The EVGA 8600 GT

As most NVIDIA graphics cards you can buy, the EVGA 8600 GT overclocked card we tested here today is really built by NVIDIA to EVGA's specifications and then marketed and distributed by EVGA.

The cooler on the GPU of the EVGA 8600 GT is actually a bit bigger than the one on the XFX 8600 GT (review coming later this week) I have also been testing. The fan is a bit larger as well and general made slightly less noise than the XFX model, but no dramatically so. You can also still see the single SLI connector for pairing up your 8600 GT with another for improved gaming performance.

As we mentioned before, this is the "Superclocked" version of the 8600 GT from EVGA so you can expect there to be some overclocking involved straight out of the box. Here are the specs:

576 MHz core clock versus 540 MHz stock

1.50 GHz memory clock versus 1.18 GHz stock

The connectors on the 8600 GT are just like those on the 8600 GTS card we tested previously: two dual-like DVI outputs and a single TV/HDTV output.

Unlike the 8600 GTS, the 8600 GT requires no external power connection and thus can run on systems with older power supplies without the need for the included power adaptor.

EVGA has included really just the bare essentials in their 8600 GT package in order to get prices as low as possible. Here we see two DVI-to-VGA adaptors, an S-Video cable, an HDTV dongle with component output and documentation/software.

G86 GPU (image from an XFX card) - note the GPU is still marked as G84

I didn't show this during the 8600 GTS review, but a couple of people were asking for it, so here is a die shot of the 8600 GT GPU -- notice that the markings on the GPU indicate a G84 core, though we are testing the 8600 GT that is supposed to be the G86 designation from NVIDIA. Since the GPUs use the same chip with lower clocks, this is probably norm across the board.